They fled Ethiopia amid war and privation. An
economic boom is bringing them home.

By Paul Schemm May 14

Abezash Tameret, who left Ethi­o­pia as a child
and grew up in foster care in Georgia, founded a charity that helps
HIV-positive orphans in Ethi­o­pia and recently moved back to Addis Ababa for
good with her children. (Aida Muluneh/For The Washington Post)

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The first time Abezash
Tamerat returned to her native Ethiopia, she walked out of the airport
terminal’s sliding doors only to turn around and walk right back in, briefly
overwhelmed by the press of beggars and taxi drivers clamoring outside.

Tamerat had left Ethiopia as a child and grown
up in foster care in Georgia. Now she was going back as a 20-year-old to
rediscover the far-off, unfamiliar place that had shaped her identity.

She arrived with about $40, trusting in a
credit card in a country that even then, in 2003, had no ATMs. A week later,
she was back at the airport trying unsuccessfully to change her ticket and get
an early flight home to Atlanta.

Frustrated, she gave her quest another chance,
staying on to find her birth family, learn ­Amharic and start a home for
HIV-positive orphans. Later, she founded Artists for Charity, a network of
artists, volunteers and donors that supports the home. After many more trips,
Tamerat, now 34, finally made the decision that more and more members of the
Ethiopian diaspora are making: She returned to Addis Ababa for good last year.

An estimated 2 million Ethiopians live abroad,
driven out by years of war, famine and economic hardship. A report by the
Migration Policy Institute puts the number of first- and second-generation
Ethiopian immigrants in the United States at about 250,000.

Now, courted by the Ethiopian government, many
are bringing back money and skills acquired in the West, helping to transform a
society still hobbled by the legacy of the 17-year communist dictatorship that
ended in 1991. Over the past decade, a country that was once a byword for
famine and privation has seen consistently high growth, welcoming foreign
investment and pouring money into infrastructure.

The homecoming is not easy for most. Returnees
confront not just a complex bureaucracy, but also frequent suspicion from those
who stayed and weathered the hard years. Yet they have changed the face of
Ethiopia’s cities — launching businesses, opening art galleries, cafes and
salons, and founding hospitals.

“You would go to
a restaurant years ago, and it was almost like you were going to get yelled
at,” she recalled.

The government has started to see overseas
citizens as a potentially rich resource, holding its first “diaspora day” last
August to showcase investment opportunities.

“We badly need
their participation, their know-how, their skills and resources,” said Tewelde
Mulugeta, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, which handles diaspora affairs.

He did not have figures for how many have come
back or started businesses in recent years but said that in the past six
months, 2,600 have returned, compared with 600 in the same period the year
before.

In the past, Ethiopians were not known for
emigrating. Those sent abroad for education in the 1960s mostly returned home.
But that changed with the 1974 overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie and the
establishment of the Marxist Derg regime.

“Coming back here was like finding peace,” said Mesfin, who with other
diaspora musicians has revitalized the Addis Ababa music scene. “You feel like
you are where you are supposed to be.”

“The community
appreciates you coming back,” he said.

Returnees struggle to adjust to daily life,
many hindered by their poor Amharic. Some complain that local Ethiopians treat
them like tourists, charging them premium prices for services.

For every member of the diaspora who makes it
back to Ethiopia, there are many who give up and leave again.

There are “just very basic things that when you
don’t have them figured out, really stress you out,” said Blayne Tesfaye, 27,
who grew up in Silver Spring, Md., and moved to Ethiopia five years ago. “There
were definitely a few moments when I called my mom and said, ‘I don’t know what
I’m doing here.’­ ”

But with her U.S. education, Tesfaye found a
job in public relations and was soon working with multinational companies from
across Africa at an age when many of her American peers were still on
post-college internships.

Addis Alemayehou, 45, came back in 2001, part
of the first wave of exiles to return, before there was even talk of an
Ethiopian economic miracle and the country was still recovering from a war with
neighboring Eritrea.

“Ethiopia is
built on a network of people,” he said. “It’s who you know, and that’s who
opens doors for you. Your platinum credit card is your name” — something that
as a newcomer, he did not have.

After living most of his life abroad, Addis
Alemayehou moved to Addis Ababa in 2001. While working for USAID he formed the
first private English radio station, Afro FM, and now has a public relations
firm, 251 Communications. (Aida Muluneh/For The Washington Post)

Now, however, his public relations firm, 251
Communications, is in demand as Ethiopian companies look to expand. Over the
past 15 years, he has watched the diaspora change the country, and
half-jokingly uses the cleanliness of restaurant bathrooms as one indicator.

“When I first
moved here, going to a decent washroom in any restaurant was a major
challenge,” he said, laughing. “The diaspora folks started coming and putting
up restaurants and cafes and putting an emphasis on making sure the washroom is
clean, and all of sudden the locals started doing the same.”

Although the communist regime was overthrown
nearly 25 years ago, Ethiopia remains a tough place to do business. Dorina
Asmanio’s friends are impressed that it took her only five months to navigate
the bureaucracy and open Il Posto, her fusion Italian restaurant with a chef
from Washington.

The half-Italian, half-Ethiopian 34-year-old,
who used to live in New York and Washington and moved back here a year ago,
recalled once having to resort to tears to persuade two customs inspectors to
put aside their rivalry and approve the imports of her restaurant’s
furnishings.

“If you come
with the mentality of doing business just like the way it is in the U.S., you
are not going to survive,” she said. “I tried to be humble and understand them.
You just have to be patient.”

Many who have come back said it takes about two
years for returnees to find their feet in a country that can appear familiar
and alien at the same time.

Yet it is precisely their ability to straddle
two worlds that makes them so potentially valuable to international investors
eyeing Ethiopia’s relatively untapped market of 94 million people.

Above all, perhaps, the returnees relish the
sense of coming home, of living in a place where no one asks where they are
from, and where they feel they belong.

“You are in a
country where your existence means something,” said Suleiman Shifaw, 36, a
graphic designer who grew up in Washington’s Adams Morgan neighborhood in the
1990s and attended Cardozo high school. “You are being given an opportunity to
mean something for your people, and it makes me feel good.”